


Spring Showers

by Lemon Dr Pepper (sh1defier), lemon_dr_pepper



Series: Seasonal Affection (Disorder) [1]
Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Injuries, References Noa's fate episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 12:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sh1defier/pseuds/Lemon%20Dr%20Pepper, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_dr_pepper/pseuds/lemon_dr_pepper
Summary: Spring is the season of young love!  But Rackam isn’t a kid anymore.  While waiting to be rescued from a silly accident, he asks Noa to explain why he teases him so much about his work on the Grandcypher, and receives an answer that would surprise literally nobody but him.





	Spring Showers

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it'd be fun to do a sweet little series of seasonal stories. Let's start with springtime.

Lumacie in early springtime. It seems like the kind of place that should be lush year-round, so trudging through the forest with nothing but buds on the trees gives Rackam a strange feeling. The sunlight peeking in casts different kinds of shadows across the place, so it’s no less eerie. No less dangerous, either--it’s still deep and misty as ever, fresh after a spring rain. Between wet grass and thick mud, every other footstep he takes is more of a slide, unless he’s getting stuck instead. Making the trek is necessary, though, or so he’d like to think, even if some other friends of his might be of a different opinion.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me why we came out here in the first place,” he complains. “I feel like the guy actually taking care of the Grandcypher, you know, doing the repairs? Oughta be the first person to know about the best materials for the job.”

The man he’s walking with, the one leading the way into the forest, laughs. “My bad. I didn’t want to keep the Grandcypher waiting, and you seemed busy.”

“Can’t’ve been that busy!” 

Noa giggles again before glancing back at him over his shoulder. “I don’t mind doing this twice. I appreciate getting to spend a little quality time with you, anyway.”

Recently the crew made a pitstop in the archipelago per Noa’s request. Noa had apparently picked up on unseen damage to the Grandcypher from some psychic primal link he shares with the ship. Problem is, he’d decided not to tell Rackam that, under the assumption that Rackam would just go wherever he asked if the request was relayed through their trustworthy captain. Which it was, and he had. But once Rackam had opened the conversation about the wood that had appeared at the ship, Noa had all-too-casually mentioned that the Grandcypher was suffering--literally--for lack of it. Whether that’s true or just the original artist projecting onto his work, the idea left Rackam fretting enough to refuse to leave until he’d had gotten a good look at the stuff first-hand.

It’s a bit of a sore spot.

“I figured you were just making a statement about my repair work,” he grumbles.

“I was being a bit of a perfectionist, I’ll admit,” Noa muses. “That’s a habit I’m trying to get out of. I actually want to learn to follow your example.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks indignantly.

“Nothing bad. You always do your best with what you have.”

“You’re damn right I do…” Rackam shakes his head. “Not like I had access to your magical Astral trees growing up in Port Breeze. And now that I do I’m out here wandering in the woods to find them.” He drags his foot out of a sinkhole clinging to him so desperately that he half expects it to turn out to be another primal beast.

“You are, even though that lumber should hold up for a good few centuries.”

“Considering the scrapes we get into, I wouldn’t bet on that.”

“True.” Noa offers him a cheerful smile. “Especially given your tendency to crash.”

Rackam shoots him an ornery glare. The smile stays put.

“You crash on purpose most of the time,” he adds as if that makes it any better.

“Seriously?” Still a smile. He needs a cigarette for this. Once he’s got it going he stops to let Noa wander ahead on his own, and asks him point blank, “Did you leave me out because you don’t think I’m doing a good enough job anymore?”

Noa stops a few feet ahead and turns back to him. “Not at all. Your work on the Grandcypher makes me happier than anything.”

Rackam watches him suspiciously, cigarette pinched between his fingers, but he huffs the smoke out through his nose and falls into step when he’s beckoned to.

If Noa’s a perfectionist, it extends well past his craftsmanship. Pretty much everything about him is pristine: His white hair and paper-white skin practically sparkle. Actually, he’s reminded when they pass under a patch of sunlight, they do it literally. He wears a lot of white too and it’s all still immaculate even as they walk through the wet forest. Rackam’s boots are covered in mud, but Noa doesn’t have a drop on him. He hasn’t made a misstep since they started, either. A glance back toward where they came from shows only one set of footprints trailing behind them. How is he… Primals. He shakes his head again. He’s made of stardust and doesn’t touch the ground when he walks. Stuff like that still catches Rackam off-guard every so often. Maybe not often enough. 

Rackam hits the forest floor with a loud swear and a disturbing audible popping sound. 

“Rackam? Are you all right?” Noa is at his side before he’s even gotten his bearings back.

He forlornly watches his cigarette sink into the muck. “Ugh. Yeah, I’m fine…” Fine except for the sharp pain that shoots up his leg the moment he twists to get back up. “Gah, dammit all… It’s fine,” he repeats. “Just give me a minute to get it together.”

It takes more than a minute, as well as Noa’s help, to get himself untangled from the gnarled root that snagged his foot. He reluctantly allows Noa to further suss out the extent of the damage. Rackam doesn’t love the idea of going barefoot in the woods, but then again, Noa’s already doing it. But Noa isn’t actually walking--well, he drops to the ground right then, so Rackam can’t argue too much beyond remarking that Noa stepping on something nasty wouldn’t make him feel any better. Some poking and prodding later, Noa comes to the determination that his ankle probably isn’t broken, though it is pretty swollen, so he’s not walking on his own anytime soon either way. For all the thought Rackam had been giving to how much easier it was for Noa to walk in these woods, it’s a little embarrassing that he quit paying attention to his own slog. 

“It might be a sprain,” Noa says. “You’ll need someone better equipped for first aid to take a look at it…” He looks up at Rackam with growing concern. “I’ll take you back to the Grandcypher.”

The mental image of Rackam draping himself over somebody Noa’s size is as impractical as it is hilarious. Noa knows it, too.

“I’m stronger than I look, you know.”

“Yeah, I know…” Primals. He waves him off anyway. “Even if you can get most of me off the ground I doubt you can keep my legs from dragging.”

“I suppose I could drag you by your legs instead,” he offers, probably joking.

“Not on your life,” he replies flatly, just to be safe. “Could you just run back and grab the others?”

“I can’t leave you here alone.” Considering that these woods are crawling with monsters, and that even with the leaves thinned out he can’t see beyond two or three trees in any direction…

Rackam slumps forwards. Primal beast or no, Noa shouldn’t go wandering off on his own either. That leaves them with one option. He gives Noa a sheepish look. “Would you mind waiting around for a bit, then?” It might take some time, but the rest of the crew is sure to come looking for them well before nightfall.

His friend affects a gentler, genuine smile, leaving behind the cheeky ones he was giving him earlier. “What a silly question. Here.” There’s a scarf around his neck that tends to float behind him in probably the same magical way in which he can walk on air. Now the shipwright puts aside the pins keeping it attached to his jacket and deftly winds it around Rackam’s ankle. It’s a touching gesture, until he takes the two ends in his hands and pulls them as hard as he can.

“H-Hey, watch it!” 

“It needs to be tight to keep the swelling down.”

“Yeah, but could you be a little more tender with it?”

Noa adjusts the way he’s sitting and gently sets his leg in his lap. “Better?” He decides not to answer that, but he doesn’t complain anymore either. Noa pats him just shy of the injury. “Was I moving too fast for you when you fell? I forget how easy it is to get caught up in these woods.”

“You were fine. I was…” Thinking about Noa, actually, and all his strange primal quirks. It feels a little weird to say that aloud, though. He shrugs instead. “I guess you had a point when you called me accident-prone.”

“I was only teasing you when I said that. Well, maybe not ‘only’,” he adds before Rackam can take the near-compliment. “Mostly, though. All pilots get into accidents. Yours tend to be minor when you consider how often you fly through situations that would get anyone else killed.” Noa lets out another little laugh. “I’m still impressed that you managed to fly her in the state you got her into before you came back to Golonzo.”

That gentle smile doesn’t look so genuine now. “You know, you’ve got a funny way of stringing insults into your praise.”

“I really don’t mean them as insults.” They sure as hell sound like insults, but he gives him the benefit of the doubt. He worries Rackam sometimes, but Noa’s got a good heart. Primal beasts aren’t always the most socially graceful people in the sky. “Really. In anyone else’s hands, the Grandcypher would have fallen out of the sky in that state of disrepair, but how many islands did you cross to get her to safety?” 

“More than a handful.” 

“That shows both how skillful you are with an airship and how much the Grandcypher trusts you.”

There he goes again with the psychic ship-talking… Which rolls off of Rackam just as easily as Noa’s other quirks. They’ve met primals with far weirder shticks; Noa communicating with his own creation seems pretty tame compared to their mutual friend Mithra’s ability to manipulate the concept of integrity. It’s uplifting to think that his ship appreciates his hard work even if the shipwright has a thing or two to say about it. 

“Though I was a little shocked that such a patchwork mess could fly in the first place, the first time I saw her again.”

“There you go again!”

“Okay,” Noa laughs again, “I’ll admit that one was mean. I’m sorry.” If Noa wasn’t cradling his hurt leg, he’d get up and walk away. For now he just shoots him a surly look. “But I honestly mean it as a compliment. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Try me.”

“Hm?”

“We’ve got time to kill and nothing better to do than sit here, so why don’t you explain? Half the time you’re telling me how great I am, the other half you’re making snide remarks about all the work I put into the Grandcypher, then you go back and say those are compliments too. I can never tell what you really think.”

Noa’s thinking something right now that’s opaque as ever. After a minute, he lowers his gaze. “I see. So my real feelings haven’t reached you…” 

The gloomy expression settling on him now makes Rackam feel a bit like a brat for demanding some kind of praise, but it’s not like Noa hasn’t seen him at his brattiest before. He sticks to his guns but softens up, leaning on the knee of his unhurt leg. “Listen, I’m not worried about whether or not we’re friends. You wouldn’t be sitting here in the mud taking care of me if you didn’t like me.” Especially given how clean he kept his clothes before this happened. So much for spotless. Rackam feels a little bad about that too. “But I got a feeling you have something to say and just haven’t. You’ve got your pride and all that, but,” he gestures around at himself, the root, the wet grass, the resting place of the poor cigarette that fell when he did. “I’ve pretty much lost all of my pride getting into this mess. It wouldn’t hurt for you to come down a little.”

He still hasn’t looked up, but Rackam catches a hint of a smile on Noa’s face. “You’ve heard a lot of it before in bits and pieces, and most of it embarrassed you. The details will probably embarrass you even more.”

“Like I said.” He repeats the hand gesture. “You said you wanted to pick up some of my habits, right? You can start by being a little more direct.”

“You are blunt to a fault, I suppose.” Rackam rolls his eyes. “But I like that about you…” This time, Noa laughs at himself. “I see your point. Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” He turns away slightly, like he’s searching out the best place to start. And when he starts, he starts slowly. “You see… As a primal beast, I’ve been building ships since the day that I was born.”

“Not too different from me so far,” Rackam says with a shrug and half a smile.

“I mean it literally, though. I was made to build them. By design, I’m not meant to make mistakes. For a while I assumed I never would. That was before the Grandcypher.” When it comes to Noa, and Rackam as well, things always come back to the Grandcypher. “When she returned from her first battle, she’d suffered catastrophic damage I’d never even imagined, something even I couldn’t fix.”

Rackam nods along. “Makes sense. You weren’t made to see battle first-hand, right? Of course it’d be tough to gauge what kinds of trouble she’d get into.”

“Oh, no. She performed spectacularly,” Noa corrects him, finally looking up. “As a flagship the Grandcypher more than exceeded expectations. Physical damage was minimal. This was something that only I could have noticed.” He fiddles with the star-shaped thing embedded in his chest, tracing the edges where it connects to his skin. “It was the ship’s spirit that was broken, and so was mine. I’d done exactly what I was made to do, but I had enough of a conscience to realize how terrible it was. The more I succeeded as a shipwright, the more I failed as a person. Every time I worked on the Grandcypher she came out even better than before, on the outside. But inside, she and I only got uglier. No one could tell, of course, because my work is without fault.” 

Rackam’s face falls. “A broken spirit’s not what you were trying to fix when we first came out here, was it?” The idea of causing something like that makes his heart sink, especially if Noa wasn’t planning on telling him.

Noa shakes his head, his little white braid swaying in the hood of his jacket. The smile he gives Rackam next is warm. “Actually, you were the person who managed to fix it. You were so little when we first met, but you had such big ambition for the Grandcypher. No one, not even me, ever talked about it the way you did. And it was just a husk of an old warship then.”

He probably should’ve expected an answer like that given what Noa has told him in the past, but he can feel some color in his face all the same. He plays it off before Noa can comment on it. “Watch it. Just because you made her doesn’t mean you get to talk like that about her.”

“Heh, right. That’s how we got onto this topic, isn’t it?” As he continues, the shipwright’s arms disappear into his giant sleeves and his jacket slips from his shoulders. “It’s not just the Grandcypher I’m talking about at this point, though. I consider all ships to be a part of me, but none moreso than the Grandcypher, so when I talk about her flaws I’m talking as much about my own.” Noa pulls his jacket around and begins to fold it in his hands, taking care not to bump Rackam’s ankle as he tucks the metal bits on it safely away. Once it’s more or less a square, he drapes it over the tricky tree root. Then he turns back to Rackam with his hand on the star on his chest once again. “I started to think that if you could find something worth saving in that old shipwreck, then maybe there was something worth saving in this one.” He moves Rackam’s foot from his lap to his makeshift cushion. “Is this okay?”

The abrupt question stops Rackam short of remarking on Noa’s last. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he replies awkwardly. Now free of responsibility, Noa rises to his knees, but this time Rackam interrupts him. “Of course the Grandcypher was worth saving. And you, too. I didn’t really know I was doing it at the time, but I’m glad that I did. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you belong with us.”

For a second, Noa looks a little bashful. “It’s all thanks to you. But even then, in all those years I spent waiting for you, I always envisioned the Grandcypher looking just as perfect as she did when I first built her. I never considered how much would change, so when you docked in Golonzo in the state you’d put her in…” 

Bashfulness melts into laughter that forces Noa to hold himself up on his thighs. There’s something earnest about it, though, so Rackam can’t keep himself from smiling too.

“I liked it,” he insists between giggles. “It was the first time I’d ever seen her in such a state. And yet even while looking like such a mess, she flew. Probably better than she did five centuries ago, because you were at the helm.”

Noa scoots to the tree and nestles in beside him. Rackam makes an effort to give him some room, but he can’t move far with his leg in its condition. The close quarters don’t seem to bother Noa too much, at least, and given that Noa’s not exactly a big guy it’s not really uncomfortable for Rackam either. Once they’re both settled, Noa dusts his hands off on his pants. He hikes the black sleeves of his undershirt up to his elbows. His arms are as pale as the rest of him, especially compared to the foliage, and at any place where they cross paths with the sun they continue to shimmer. He turns and offers Rackam his hand. 

Rackam glances between his hand and his face as the primal waits expectantly. For lack of a better idea, he sets his own hand into Noa’s. It seems like that’s what he was waiting for, given that he pulls it over to take it into both of his own, a motion that twists Rackam’s upper body a little more in his direction. “So where are we going with this?” he has to ask. Noa doesn’t immediately answer. Instead he pulls off Rackam’s glove, finger by finger. “Noa? You wanna elaborate?” The glove is handed back to him without a word of explanation.

Noa hikes up Rackam’s sleeve next, exposing his forearm to the damp, chilly air. The change in temperature puts the hair on the back of his arm on edge, but it really stands at attention when Noa’s fingers start to drift along his flushing skin. “What you see as imperfections, I see as evidence of all the love you’ve poured into the Grandcypher. It’s easy to forget that things that look pristine on the outside can be twisted and damaged on the inside… But with evidence like that, it’s easier to tell that someone has found them worth trying to save. Every reminder is precious to me.”

His fingertips seek out every scratch, scar, or anything else he can find, and lingers on each to trace it before he moves on to the next. Rackam’s not nearly as torn up as some of their other crewmates, but compared to Noa’s practically porcelain arms he’s got plenty to find. No such marks appear on a primal beast with a healing factor. The only things staining Noa are grass and dirt, grit built up under his fingernails, all from handling Rackam. Rackam vaguely mutters, “Some of those are cigarette burns...” with his arm sitting limply in his hands as they wander over his skin. 

“Hopefully you haven’t been putting out too many cigarettes on the poor Grandcypher.” Right, they’re talking about the airship. Their airship. He turns Rackam’s hand over, palm up, and runs his thumb along the calluses on every digit. Noa’s hands are smaller, but definitely not fragile. A shipwright made for the job needs a delicate touch for fine details, but he can tell by how he handles him that they’re strong. His touch is full of fearless precision. “Your craftsmanship isn’t lost on me. There are times when even I struggle to see where you end and I begin.” 

Wow, the forest sure feels smaller than it did when they walked in here. 

“But I think this is why I point out all the quirks. Nothing makes me happier than your love for… my greatest creation…”

That’s the airship.

Once Noa is satisfied with stroking him he settles his palm into Rackam’s and laces his fingers into his, smiles up at him, “_O_ _ ur _ greatest creation.” 

Yep. The airship.

“Rackam… You’re blushing.” 

Definitely the airship.

Noa looks way too proud of himself right now. “All those scars give it a certain handsome, rugged quality too, don’t you think?”

Rackam tugs at his collar to try and let some of the heat out. Springtime has no business being this hot. “Y… Yeah.” He has no idea why he thought Noa wouldn’t be able to embarrass him. He was asking for it. “The Grandcypher’s been my whole world ever since I was a kid, but uh, you knew that. That’s how we met, so...” Noa’s charmed laughter spares him from proverbially putting his foot any further into his mouth.

“Does that answer your question? Hopefully now my feelings are clear.” Crystal. At least, he thinks so. Actually, this just opened up a whole lot of new questions for him. It’s hard to discern the difference between Noa’s honesty and his metaphors, and what was both, and who was what at what time. For a guy trying to be direct, Noa did a great job of talking in circles enough to leave Rackam’s head spinning. 

A breeze passes through the forest, giving him a break from the unseasonable warmth. Rackam only notices when a few loose flower petals rustled from the treetops come tumbling down on he and Noa, one of which flutters right into his open palm.

Noa’s blue eyes brighten at the sight of it. “Would you look at that. Isn’t that a funny twist of fate?”

“You can say that again.”

“You can tell?” Noa looks up curiously, pulling Rackam back out of his spiral of thoughts.

“Er… Nah, I was thinking out loud. What’s up?”

Noa turns his eyes toward the canopy. “It looks like you tripped over one of the trees we were looking for. I was too distracted by the tripping part to notice.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rackam briefly puts aside the feelings he’s trying to unpack and joins him in looking up.

“Well, partially. It’s a hybrid. Most of the trees the Astrals planted here have grown together with the normal ones by now, but you can still see their Astral origins if you look closely.” To demonstrate, Noa tilts Rackam’s hand into the sunlight filtering in through the rustled trees. The light glints off the petal from various angles, sending a little shower of sparkles across its surface wherever it touches. “Lumacie has some interesting plant life, but none of its trees do this naturally. Isn’t it pretty? It’s like it’s made of stardust.”

“Yeah, it is.” There’s an unfamiliar lump in Rackam’s throat. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s pretty beautiful.” 

There’s a big, obvious question he should probably ask Noa at this point, but actually putting it into words is a struggle. Where can he even start? He’s not used to being the one having trouble with being direct. 

“So, ah…” Rackam tears his eyes off the flower and looks into the canopy again. “Would the Grandcypher be satisfied with a mismatched tree like this? One that’s got a little star and a little sky both in it?” It always comes back to the Grandcypher for the two of them.

Noa squeezes his hand with affection. “I’ll be honest with you. Even though the wood I replaced had been bothering her, she gave me a hard time about sinking into old habits when I brought back the pure one. You turned her into a bit of a smart aleck.”

“Heh, well, can’t help who I am.” He gives Noa a shrug and a smile, even if he can’t give him a better answer. “We’ll see if she still feels that way the next time I get her into trouble.”

“And I’m sure we’ll be getting into trouble again soon enough.”

“Trouble does follow us pretty much everywhere we go.”

“_ Rackam! _”

He yanks his hand free of Noa’s and uses it to push himself in front of the primal beast, as if he’s in any state to protect him from the third voice that just tore through the woods. That voice is followed by a burst of gruff, hysterical laughter, then the squishing of wet grass and mud underfoot. Io storms out from behind a nearby tree, flanked by a grinning Eugen. She stomps over to the two men on the ground and glares at Rackam specifically. 

“You are such a dolt!”

“The hell did I do!” Rackam responds in surprised, confused fashion.

“It’s what you didn’t do that matters! _ Geez _, Rackam…” She prods his twisted ankle with the end of her staff. 

“Easy!” he yelps in response, and Eugen starts laughing again.

“I knew you’d look like a hot mess, but I didn’t think you’d be that kind of mess!” The older man holsters his gun and wipes a tear out of his eye. “What’d I tell you about being fixated on that airship? Your love life’s never going anywhere if that’s all you ever talk about!”

“I like Rackam’s one track mind about the Grandcypher,” says Noa.

Rather than respond to any of this harassment, Rackam demands the obvious. “How long have you been out here spying on us?” Then something else occurs to him and he shifts gears. “Wait, how long have _ we _ been out here?” It can’t have been that long, given that the sun’s barely moved. Then again, time passes oddly in places like these, especially during moments of...

“We came after you because Rosetta told us you might be in trouble,” Io sighs.

“She said you fell on yer ass about twenty minutes in.”

That woman is too in tune with these woods for comfort.

“Who cares that you tripped? She _ should’ve _ said you were being dumb about…” The little mage shakes her head disapprovingly, like a kid her age has any business getting into his business like this.

Once she’s patched him up enough for him to at least limp back, Eugen hauls Rackam to his feet and drapes his arm over his shoulder. Noa gathers up the rest of their scattered things before he joins the group, sporting another smile. “Hee hee, sorry about all this. I’m a terrible chaperone. Next time I’ll try holding Rackam’s hand _ before _ he gets into trouble.”

“Hey!” Rackam rounds on him, red-faced. “I’m not a little kid!”

Eugen gives him a playful elbow to the ribs. “Pretty sure he picked up on that at some point.”

“For crying out loud…”

They bicker and tease the whole trip back, and at a loss like he is, Rackam spends that time deflecting it all. It’s not until he’s had a chance to organize his thoughts and think a few things through that he recognizes he had two airtight counterarguments: The eavesdroppers should have picked up on the fact that--well, not that he wasn’t literally talking about the Grandcypher, but in the context of the conversation, it meant a little more than that. And if they’re really right, and Rackam’s right, about the little beaming shipwright and what just happened between them, then the Grandcypher is a pretty damn good influence on his love life after all.


End file.
